Norwegian Critics' Award 2009/2010

Excerpt from speech by Sidsel Pape, held as part of the awards ceremony for Norwegian Critics' Award for dance 2009/2010, September 30 2010 at The House of Literature in Oslo:

"In a time when more contemporary dance choreographers test works with large companies, Bjørnsgaard shows that she masters the format, as well as performances in solos, duos and trios. When 18 dancers create an apparent state of chaos in Largo, a well-considered composition step forward, one in which the choreographer's eye for the individual and the group is taken carefully care of. Bjørnsgaard excellently balances power and fragility, humour and melancholy in quick transformations, unexpected and unpredictable. The production towers above other choreography performed in Norwegian venues the period of 2009/2010.

Bjørnsgaard's musicality creates dynamic interaction between music and movement. The music is, as in several of Bjørnsgaard's former productions, composed by Per Henrik Svalastog. Baroque music by Bach, Telemann, Goebel, Händel and others has also been used."

Read the speech in full (Norwegian only) here.

Source:

Norwegian Critics'Association, kritikerlaget.no, 29.09.2011, http://www.kritikerlaget.no/pages/nor/540-dansekritikerprisen_20092010_til_ingun_bjoernsgaard

Excerpt from speech by Mona Levin, held during the awards ceremony for Norwegian Critics' Award 2009/2010, September 30 2010 at The House of Literature in Oslo:

"With his obsession with Chet Baker as a backdrop, including the development of his own talent as a sax player, Thorbjørn Harr created a deeply moving Daniel, the musician who sacrifices everything for the music, for the few moments in the life of a musicians that are pure happiness - when the tone is the divinely pure, the perfect, the optimal and ultimate. He dies without knowing if he gets to experience it. And was it worth it? Was he good enough?

These are also as always the actor's questions to himself. And as a representative for what in the play is described as 'the rude and ungrateful predator who doesn't understand shit', I responded to the question like this in my review:

'Thorbjørn Harr tours the enormous text brilliantly - simply, directly, vocally well-phrased, ironically distanced - everything seemingly spontaneously, there and then. A technical tour de force, one he fills with intense unsentimental sensibility, in particular sincere in the songs, and with great humour. 'Quiet, slow and suitable', which is the playwright's definition of 'cool', and 'cool' is the very definition of Chet Baker'."

Read the speech in full (Norwegian only) here.

Source:

Norwegian Critics' Association, kritikerlaget.no. 20.09.2011, http://www.kritikerlaget.no/pages/nor/538-teaterkritikerprisen_20092010_til_thorbjoern_harr